


To Drink the Wine of Wrath

by Val Mora (valmora)



Series: The Oviparan [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Implied Mpreg, Kink Meme, M/M, Post-Sburb, implied past attempted rape, mild hemoism, quadrant messes, religion is the opiate of the highblooded, tooth and quadrant symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-17
Updated: 2012-03-17
Packaged: 2017-11-02 02:01:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/363765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valmora/pseuds/Val%20Mora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Oviparan and the decommissioned Helmsman meet with the Grand Highblood at his request.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Drink the Wine of Wrath

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](http://homesmut.livejournal.com/15949.html?thread=32843085#t32843085) at the kink meme.
> 
> The title is from [Revelation 14:10](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+14&version=NIV), where Revelation 14 is full of relevant symbolism (no, seriously).
> 
> Written thanks to an inspiring anonymous OP at the kink meme.

They're most of the way through negotiating decoupling procedures with the _Creativitiator_ when the shipboard computer pings with an incoming message. Eridan holds onto Sollux's shirt a little tighter, sitting together in the copilot's seat in the pilot's block. Gravidra, in the pilot's seat, hits the button to see the message, then swears.

"The Grand Highblood wants to see you, Oviparan,” she says.

Eridan closes his eyes, lets his cheek rest against Sollux's shoulder. His thighs are still sticky, and he was going to take a shower as soon as they were away from the Subjugglators' ship, but he knew that this was going to happen. It always does.

"On my way," he says, levering himself to standing. His hands are still shaking.

Gravidra makes another noise, a distressed click in the back of her throat. "You too, Helmsman."

Sollux's fingers curl around Eridan's wrist. "I'm sure he'll love the complementary colors enough to let us live."

Eridan resists the urge to push Sollux's glasses up, to run the pads of his thumbs over Sollux's eyelids, to touch the light spilling out from between his lashes.

\---

The block smells like rotting meat, even if there are no corpses in it at the moment. The walls and floor are vivid under the ultraviolet lights, and for a moment Eridan doesn't see Gamzee standing in a corner, uniform lit up with indigo.

Gamzee's adult height and strength were stunted by his grubhood sopor abuse; he slouches even now, and looks brittle. He's not, of course; he got off it before the truly insidious effects could occur, but he looks scrawny, even if he can still crush skulls as easily as any other adult troll.

(Maybe not as easily as Sollux, but then again, how many people can? Sollux went white-hot with rage when a Cyanolieutenderier tried to steal Eridan's cycle, and while Eridan was perfectly capable of stopping her himself, Sollux was the one who culled her. If that cycle, with a battleship captain, unexpectedly turned up Helmsmen, Eridan has nothing to say in his defense but that Sollux, seething with power, was too much to resist after a cold-blooded bout of sex with a captain who was culled less than a perigee later.)

"Brother," Gamzee says, grinning. He shambles over to them, and presses his fingers to Eridan's cheeks, then to Sollux's, his claws scratching lines in their flesh. Not deep, but enough to well up blood.

"Sir," Eridan says. Their respective ranks are tricky to negotiate: Gamzee is the higher in social standing, Eridan the higher in blood. Eridan owes Gamzee obedience but not respect.

"Highblood," Sollux says, and tilts his head back, aiming his horns away and exposing his throat. A slave's response to his blood-betters.

There was a time when Eridan enjoyed being addressed that way by land-dwelling scum. Now, in Sollux's voice, Sollux's neck thin-skinned and tender with blood, it makes him want to destroy things, to remake the world so that Sollux will never give his throat to anyone but Eridan.

"This isn't any kind of official," Gamzee says, low and rolling. He's high, Eridan hopes. Or maybe calmed – maybe fresh from a feelings jam.

And then Gamzee continues, " _So maybe you oughta get yourselves a motherfuckin' seat,_ " in a roar that makes Eridan want to curl up to guard his belly.

So. Not high.

There are no chairs in the room. You're meant to stand, or kneel, before the Grand Highblood. Eridan goes to one knee. Sollux goes to both.

Gamzee turns, paces away, then back.

"How you doin'?" he asks, when he has returned. He's looking at Sollux.

Sollux pauses, and Gamzee bares his teeth. " _I asked you a motherfucking question._ "

"I'm fine," Sollux says. "Thank you." His chin is still up, and Eridan slides into possessive jealousy: _How dare you submit to him when you've never submitted to me._ He wants to curl his claws against Sollux's pulse, feel it shudder with lust as Eridan –

His mind whites out briefly with the impact of Gamzee hitting him.

"Listen up, little fishie." Gamzee says, too close, his breath smelling of carrion. " _Should know what's happening around you._ " He laughs, high and raucous, paces away again. Drags a claw along the metal wall.

"How d'you like it with him, Helmsman?" Gamzee asks finally. " _He treat you like you were motherfuckin' meant to be treated?_ "

Sollux closes his eyes. In the darkness, Eridan can see the shivers of red and blue leaking from beneath his lids. "He treats me better than most, Highblood."

Gamzee laughs, comes to Eridan, sets a hand under his chin and tilts his face up, then lets him go. Eridan gets an eyeful of Gamzee's hand: tooth rings on every single finger, dyed brown. A full fucking quadrant's worth of flushed.

And on the other hand, bright mutant red, full pale set.

He glances to the side, trying to catch Sollux's eye, but Sollux isn't looking at him.

"That the same as good?" Gamzee asks, crouching down in front of Eridan.

"Except when I don't want him to," Sollux says.

Gamzee reaches out, cups the corner of Eridan's jaw and strokes at his cheekbone with the pad of his thumb. Eridan's inner eyelid shuts at the proximity of his claw.

"You black together, then?" Gamzee says, tracing a spade on Eridan's cheek.

"None a your -" Eridan's mouth freezes before he can finish with _business_ , crackle of Sollux's power in his bones.

Too late anyway.

Gamzee lets go of him, scrapes his claws along Eridan's aural fin, tearing through it.

Eridan fights not to react, but despite himself he whimpers in the back of his throat. Gamzee's claws come away purple, and he stands back up, gaze fixed over their heads as he contemplates the walls.

Eridan lets himself drop into Sollux, arms around his waist and Sollux's hands in his hair and his fin throbs, violet-bright with pulsing pain.

"Ssh," Sollux says, softly, and Eridan rests his cheek against Sollux's thorax, his intact fin pressed against Sollux's clothing, feeling the pulse of Sollux's double bloodpushers, his lowblood warmth.

There's a rivulet of blood trailing down Eridan's neck. It tickles.

"Fuck," he swears, and Sollux shushes him again.

"Isn't that just _the most motherfucking precious thing_. Just bleeding motherfucking diamonds. _Fish got any other quadrants with him?_ "

"And black, and red," Eridan spits. His bilgesack tightens. They've never put a color to what they are, because it's not – it's sick, that much flipping. It doesn't feel like flipping. It feels like sliding through every emotional spectrum, full of each other, natural as the tide. Gravidra doesn't say anything because Eridan still carries out his duties, but he knows she doesn't like it, thinks they're both damaged. Maybe they are.

Sollux's palm slides down his spine, warm through his shirt.

"Now that's how you _show some motherfucking courtesy,_ " Gamzee says, sweetly for all his rage, and then he darts in, seizes one of Sollux's horns, pushes Sollux's head back until his mouth opens.

Gamzee hums wonderingly. "You're with him in three quadrants _and you both got all your teeth?_ " The sheer volume of his voice makes Eridan's aural flap scream with pain.

Sollux's thorax heaves.

"It wwouldn't'a been right to rush," Eridan says. "Wwith him still in the helm half the time an' me givvin' my sexual favors to other people."

Gamzee nods, turns away, then says, "Get the lowblood out _before I motherfucking blind him._ "

Sollux's breath stops, just for a moment, and Eridan only realizes when Sollux lets go of him that they're both shaking, now.

(Sollux's hips bony against his, his warmth almost too much in the recuperacoon, _You **blinded** me_ , his claws digging sharp into Eridan's back and the slime dark with their blood and genetic material.)

So Eridan lets Sollux go. Just him and Gamzee and the walls painted with blood.

Eridan gets up off the floor as Gamzee stalks over to his official seat. Gamzee's hands glimmer under the light, jewelry heavy. Eridan's own hands feel bare, his tongue thick in his mouth. No color and no commitment, but isn't it enough to have given Sollux his life and freedom?

(Sollux's hands pressed to Eridan's overfull belly, _I never knew_ with his voice full of wonder at what they'd made together)

"This isn't just a motherfuckin' pleasure visit," Gamzee says. His claws curl over the ends of his chair. " _Because we're watching you._ "

"I obey," Eridan says, which is about the only thing _to_ say. The blood on his neck is wet, salt-pungent.

"I can hear it, _I can hear him coming, brother._ " Gamzee gasps, bends his head, kisses the knuckles of his left hand, every one of them ringed in red.

"Who?" Eridan asks, because if he's going to be horrified he wants to do it right.

"You know. _You motherfucking know who I'm talking about._ " Gamzee's eyes have gone wide, wild. "My pale brother is coming back, _and you'll be motherfucking bringing him._ "

"Sir," he says.

"We'll be talking _pretty motherfucking soon,_ " Gamzee says, and smiles at him. Truly smiles, as though they were fond of each other.

Eridan takes two steps up to the throne, kneels, takes Gamzee's left hand. Presses his forehead to the back of Gamzee's knuckles, bright with Karkat's teeth. Takes two steps back.

The Crosshairs was made for Dualscar's hands. Like one Oviparan, like another. It's easy to kill him, even on the weapon's weakest setting. Just aim and fire, and Gamzee's head is so much indigo-bright pulp. Eridan has always had steady hands, when it was someone else's pain.

He puts the Crosshairs back in his sylladex, turns, walks away. His aural fin is still throbbing, dripping blood.

He gets to his little ship, walks into the pilot's cabin.

"Run," he says.

Gravidra frowns in confusion, but Sollux nods, once, unsurprised, moving to kneel on the floor. Pulls the cover off his Helmsman's jack, plugs in. The engines roar to life.

"I culled him," Eridan says.

"Culled who?" There's a moment of silence as they pull away from the _Creativitiator_ , and then Gravidra's mouth drops. "The _Grand Highblood?_ "

Eridan smiles at her, all his teeth. "Sent him where he wanted to be anyway," he says, and crouches, pulling Sollux's chin up for a kiss.


End file.
